(Live sound) DI box? Is it needed to send the Line out from Blackbox to FOH?

[gsirvine]

DI box? Is it needed to send the Line out from Blackbox to FOH? I’m thinking about sending multi-outs to front of house and am wondering if DI boxes are necessary. I think the BB is line out on for it’s outputs. I read somewhere that many synth players (line level) go through DI boxes.


I’m prepping for a show. Thanks

[-thus-]

You may benefit in a live setup. Keyboard players use DI boxes in a live setup when their instruments have unbalanced audio outputs and are connecting to balanced inputs at the mixer. The DI box is an effective way to handle the mismatch and reduce the noise that can be picked up over long cable runs with unbalanced audio. The Blackbox has unbalanced audio outputs.

[gsirvine]

I see. Thank you for the response. Is there a cheaper solution than buying like 5-6 DI boxes if I'm sending out a lot of synths?

[Georges]

Not sure if cheaper but certainly practical with such a big setup: https://www.radialeng.com/product/kl-8

[-thus-]

You can get low-noise results connecting unbalanced outputs to balanced inputs, without DI boxes, if you follow two principles:

1. Use balanced cables or a balanced cable snake to get you all the way from the mixer to a location close to your instruments.
2. Use a short cable to connect the 3-conductor balanced cable to the 2-conductor unbalanced audio of your instruments.

Attached I’ve included a picture of how the short cable should be wired.

The picture is taken from keyboard cables I bought for use in my home studio that I wired following the principles I described above.

To connect blackbox audio in this scenario you need an additional adapter for each mini jack that splits the stereo TRS into two unbalanced mono connectors. Your short cables (requirement 2 above) just need to be of the right connector type (and gender!) to join the mono connectors (typically RCA or TS) to the balanced cables (typically XLR).

Source:

https://www.prosoundweb.com/connecting-unbalanced-outputs-to-balanced-inputs-and-vice-versa/2/